And no one should think any the worse of the game of business because its standards of right and wrong differ from the prevailing traditions of morality in our society. This view of business is especially worrisome to people without much business experience.
A minister of my acquaintance once protested that business cannot possibly function in our society unless it is based on the Judeo-Christian system of ethics. He told me:. Surely the vast majority of businessmen are ethical. I myself am acquainted with many who adhere to strict codes of ethics based fundamentally on religious teachings.
They contribute to good causes. They participate in community activities. They cooperate with other companies to improve working conditions in their industries.
Certainly they are not indifferent to ethics. That most businessmen are not indifferent to ethics in their private lives, everyone will agree. My point is that in their office lives they cease to be private citizens; they become game players who must be guided by a somewhat different set of ethical standards. The point was forcefully made to me by a Midwestern executive who has given a good deal of thought to the question:. This executive call him Robbins took the stand that even industrial espionage, which is frowned on by some businessmen, ought not to be considered unethical.
He recalled a recent meeting of the National Industrial Conference Board where an authority on marketing made a speech in which he deplored the employment of spies by business organizations. More and more companies, he pointed out, find it cheaper to penetrate the secrets of competitors with concealed cameras and microphones or by bribing employees than to set up costly research and design departments of their own.
A whole branch of the electronics industry has grown up with this trend, he continued, providing equipment to make industrial espionage easier.
The marketing expert found it so. A good part of the time the businessman is trying to do unto others as he hopes others will not do unto him. Bear in mind that there already is at least one large corporation—you can buy its stock over the counter—that makes millions by providing counterespionage service to industrial firms.
Wherever we turn in business, we can perceive the sharp distinction between its ethical standards and those of the churches. Newspapers abound with sensational stories growing out of this distinction:. These are merely dramatic instances of a prevailing condition; there is hardly a major industry at which a similar attack could not be aimed. Critics of business regard such behavior as unethical, but the companies concerned know that they are merely playing the business game.
Among the most respected of our business institutions are the insurance companies. They had been guilty, Moynihan alleged, of using outdated actuarial tables to obtain unfairly high premiums. They habitually delayed the hearings of lawsuits against them in order to tire out the plaintiffs and win cheap settlements.
In their employment policies they used ingenious devices to discriminate against certain minority groups. It was difficult for the audience to deny the validity of these charges. But these men were business game players. If the laws governing their businesses change, or if public opinion becomes clamorous, they will make the necessary adjustments.
But morally they have in their view done nothing wrong. As long as they comply with the letter of the law, they are within their rights to operate their businesses as they see fit.
The small business is in the same position as the great corporation in this respect. For example:. Violations of the ethical ideals of society are common in business, but they are not necessarily violations of business principles. In one case, a firm manufacturing a well-known mouthwash was accused of using a cheap form of alcohol possibly deleterious to health. We obey them. Why, a sudden submission to Christian ethics by businessmen would bring about the greatest economic upheaval in history!
Talk about ethics by businessmen is often a thin decorative coating over the hard realities of the game:. No one who was present could doubt their common attitude. In their eyes the code was designed primarily to forestall a move by the federal government to impose stern restrictions on the industry.
They felt that the code would hamper them a good deal less than new federal laws would. It was, in other words, conceived as a protection for the industry, not for the public. The young executive accepted the surface explanation of the code; these leaders, all experienced game players, did not deceive themselves for a moment about its purpose. The speaker is really saying that in the long run a company can make more money if it does not antagonize competitors, suppliers, employees, and customers by squeezing them too hard.
He is saying that oversharp policies reduce ultimate gains. That is true, but it has nothing to do with ethics. Business is our main area of competition, and it has been ritualized into a game of strategy. The basic rules of the game have been set by the government, which attempts to detect and punish business frauds. But as long as a company does not transgress the rules of the game set by law, it has the legal right to shape its strategy without reference to anything but its profits.
If it takes a long-term view of its profits, it will preserve amicable relations, so far as possible, with those with whom it deals. A wise businessman will not seek advantage to the point where he generates dangerous hostility among employees, competitors, customers, government, or the public at large.
But decisions in this area are, in the final test, decisions of strategy, not of ethics. An individual within a company often finds it difficult to adjust to the requirements of the business game. He tries to preserve his private ethical standards in situations that call for game strategy.
When he is obliged to carry out company policies that challenge his conception of himself as an ethical man, he suffers. It disturbs him when he is ordered, for instance, to deny a raise to a man who deserves it, to fire an employee of long standing, to prepare advertising that he believes to be misleading, to conceal facts that he feels customers are entitled to know, to cheapen the quality of materials used in the manufacture of an established product, to sell as new a product that he knows to be rebuilt, to exaggerate the curative powers of a medicinal preparation, or to coerce dealers.
There are some fortunate executives who, by the nature of their work and circumstances, never have to face problems of this kind. But in one form or another the ethical dilemma is felt sooner or later by most businessmen.
Possibly the dilemma is most painful not when the company forces the action on the executive but when he originates it himself—that is, when he has taken or is contemplating a step which is in his own interest but which runs counter to his early moral conditioning.
To illustrate:. Temptations of this kind constantly arise in business. Consequently in the long run, bluffing in business causes an increase of consumption expenditures, which stimulates the rate of economic growth.
As a result, customers satisfy their needs, firms have higher revenue, the government collects more tax, and some portion of the collected tax is also used to benefit less fortunate people. So we can see that bluffing, in effect, guarantees more happiness to more people. In addition, if customers are really cheated or harmed in any way there are always laws to protect them from that kind of business dishonesty. In contrast, if a firm does not use business bluffing; it does not matter how honest a firm runs its business, if it goes into loss, nobody will slbert back what is lost.
Therefore, bluffing produces more happiness for more people than being completely honest. Thus, business bluffing, according to Utilitarianism, is morally right inside of business. According to Kant, testing whether an action is morally right or wrong depends on whether the maxim, on which the action was based, can be universalized.
A maxim cannot be universalized if it contains a logical contradiction or a contradiction between two wills. By universalizing the maxim we mean to apply it to all people at all times. Kant strongly suggests that thinking of a logical contradiction is one way to test whether a maxim can be universalized.
A logical contradiction means a contradiction in the very proposition that someone acts on a maxim when one tries to universalize that maxim. Kant demonstrates this by using false promise as a typical example. What if everybody made false promises on everything all the time? Then everybody would know that everybody else was making false promises and what was promised would never become a reality. So people will not believe any promise and promise will not be taken as a promise and wont be able to achieve its goal.
Thus there is a logical contradiction in universalizing false promise because once false promise is universalized it ceases to exist; this is why, according to Kant, it is wrong to make false promise. Apply this test to business bluffing. Business bluffing has been going on for so long and every business agent in the past and today has been doing it. For example, after watching shampoo commercials on television, consumers do not believe that using a certain brand of shampoo will make their hair exactly as shiny as shown on the commercial.
However, people are still attracted to the beautiful hair they see on television. As a matter of fact, consumers are more easily persuaded to purchase products by these over exaggerated commercials. Customers know that what is showed on TV is not a promise, it just a way the product can help things get better. This has been used as practical business strategy. If a firm gets what it wants by bluffing, the maxim of the action can be universalized because the firm allows that every other firms use business bluffing all the time, even to itself.
Business bluffing is a given and is known by everyone, yet it still goes on. Both customers and firms accept business bluffing and thus it goes on all the time. This shows that business bluffing can be universalized without ceasing to exist. As a matter of fact, bluffing passes the test of universality at this point.
Although, this theory seems logical, the fact is that people in business have no problem with allowing both bluffing and being bluffed.
Thus in the case of business bluffing, it is possible for it to become a universal practice in the business sector. Morality in business is insured by obeying the law the letter, not necessarily the a,bert, of the law.
If I am holding a pair of threes and you have a full ethjcal it is perfectly acceptable for me to bluff you out of your better hand and take the winnings. History of Western Philosophy. Thus there is a logical contradiction in universalizing false promise because once false promise is universalized it ceases to exist; this is why, according to Kant, it is wrong to make false promise.
Ideally your duty is not dictated by what others are doing but the simple fact is that if doing your duty puts you in danger and would be wholly ineffective there is a good case to be made on practical grounds for you not being bound by your duty. They take everything they say with a grain of salt. A maxim cannot be universalized if ethiccal contains a logical contradiction or a contradiction between two wills. Contact Order Price quote. To call it a game is to trivialize what really amounts to the method people use to make a living.
What makes business ethics so difficult for many people is to recognize that what we are trying to do here is get some clarity about how the business world ought to function. This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website.
Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are as essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent.
You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website.
0コメント